My Dear Fellow Man….. Poem by Ponniah Ganeshan

In what container
Do you want to weigh me
After mutilating hands and legs
Clipping of fingers
And severing my head
What is poured here
Is nothing but blood and blood
My fellow man.

How many outfits you wear
Heavy and struggling to bear

I don’t like to alight my eyes on you
Go back and come with your real self
Go back and come with the languages
Of the heart
Go back and come being resurrected
Out of ashes of all, man –made
Differences, burnt.

Is life
Grubbing, slumbering and squatting
And then vanishing.

Is life
A mere pot of boiled rice
For you to measure out
With a small spoon
And me to receive it?

Who knows my woes
My fellow man,
You thrust so relentlessly
All yours on me
I, being deprived of all rights
To resent.

From life upon life
Deep and serene
With multitudes of genesis
Packed upon
I should quench at least a drop
From the vast ocean of this life.

Like the blooming
Red shoe flower with its
Dewdropp wet
In the colour of my very blood.